


To Our Lives.

by WickedSong



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedSong/pseuds/WickedSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The best kind of love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." He tells her the same story every day, in the hope that, at least once, she will look up at him, her eyes glistening, a smile on her lips and recognition on her face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface.

**Author's Note:**

> So, after much stalling and 'Will I, won't I?' I will be embarking on a Samcedes story which is heavily inspired by themes and events in the book-turned-into-film ‘The Notebook’.
> 
> I will not be following the plot of the movie completely and will instead be following the Samcedes plotline in Glee S3/pre-s3 until we get to ‘Goodbye’ when the story will deviate into the part more inspired by The Notebook.
> 
> I will be posting a follow up chapter to the (admittedly very very very short) preface (which I posted on tumblr a month ago), soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

I am not a remarkable man. Ageing, decrepit almost, I will be gone soon. There will be little fanfare in my passing, no monuments, no statues, only my close family and friends to deal with the bereavement and to give their dedications to my quiet life.

Yet, I know I have lived. And I have loved. Which, in my eyes, are one in the same. I loved more deeply than I had ever imagined and was loved with more care and compassion than I ever dreamed I deserved.

Many, anyone actually, can claim to have found their soulmate and yet only a select few can say so, can know with 100% clarity and an ironclad conviction. For me, once I had found her, knowing was a second nature, almost as easy as breathing. 

The following love story is nothing extraordinary. In fact, you’ve probably heard it all before. It will not inspire a generation to find true love and again, I must emphasise, I am not a remarkable man. This story, however, gives me the brightest hope in life, is my guiding light, my heart and my soul. While it gets harder and harder to tell, as each day it seems she might remember less and less than before, when she does, I am given the new found will to try and try again. 

Because we will always find our way back to each other.

This is our story.


	2. Once Upon A Time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still a fairly short installment but I will be getting onto longer chapters in the next week or so, I promise.
> 
> I still don't own Glee or The Notebook or anything else you may recognise.

After my usual morning routine, which included waking up at an early hour, showering, shaving, and having breakfast, I emerged from my room with a spring in my step, the slightly worn out blue notebook in hand. With a bright smile I greeted the nurse at the station near my room.

“What’s that smile about, I wonder,” she asked with a tone that said she knew exactly what it implied.

I stopped, hands on the counter, and gave a shrug. “Just a good day, is all,” I told her. I gave the counter a tap. “I can feel it.”

“Well I certainly hope so,” was her reply, with a smile which seemed to emit some sadness. 

I had been here for almost two years and I had grown used to that smile. That smile motivated me, it was a smile that told me that I was reaching for the impossible, that I was only setting myself up to be heartbroken again and again, day after day, night after night, when she didn’t remember. 

And this was true.

There had been many of those nights, nights where I would lie awake, blinking back tears and shaking my head. The nurses would tell me to never beat myself up about it, there was nothing that could be done as her memory was just going to continue to worsen. It was often described as a battle; a losing battle where there could be no winner.

Even with all this knowledge I would still walk to her room every morning and knock the door, as I did this morning. I hardly dared to ever get my hopes up nowadays but there was something about today that seemed to emit hope from every corner of my mind. I couldn’t shake that feeling as hard as I tried. 

Her nurse opened the door and shook her head at me. “It doesn’t seem like a good day.”

My heart did a dip momentarily but I gave an understanding smile. “Can I just-“

She wordlessly opened the door a little wider and turned around to the woman by the window. “Ms. Jones, you have a visitor.”

“Who?”

Mercedes turned from the window, where she had been aimlessly looking down at the river outside the house. I resisted the urge to smile at how she still so beautiful, even decades on from when we had first met. There was a beauty and a tragedy in that we were now always doomed to repeat that first day in this way; and even worse to know that there were no guarantees that she would have any recollation of me at all.

She always enjoyed the story but there were only a few times where she had been able to remember.

“This is Duke,” the nurse introduced. I nodded to her, a pain in my chest at having to take on a fake name in front of her but it was a necessary action. Sometimes the memories would overwhelm her and my frustration and hurt would only increase with every time the nurse would introduce me as ‘Sam Evans’ and my name would only be met with a polite yet almost scared smile. I was nothing more than a stranger to her now.

It was an ache that I was gradually beginning to grow used to - a routine that I had fallen into now.

“He’s come to read you a story,” the nurse said with a quiet voice and a smile. She gave a slight nod to Mercedes.

While she still looked a little scared, a little hesitant, she gave a quiet nod and I resisted the urge to smile, my good feeling making me feel light and airy.

We walked to the conservatory, without a word and sat at two seats next to a window. It was quiet, some people sleeping, others reading or being read to by the nursing staff. I looked down at the book in my hands and put my glasses on. “May I?” I asked her.

She gave a nod. “What kind of story is this anyway?”

I smiled. “A love story,” and began the tale.


	3. From Across the Football Field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer is in the first chapter.
> 
> I know they are still short chapters but these are really setting things up at McKinley pre-Samcedes, the background and then getting into the Samcedes of the matter in about 1-3 chapters perhaps? Idk, I'm just taking it as I go.
> 
> Thanks for all the alerts, faves and reviews so much! I seriously appreciate all of them and the response has really overwhelmed me! Thank you so so much! Please review if you enjoy this chapter!

Sam Evans was a boy born and raised in the South. Tennessee was the only home he had ever known and when his father announced a move for the entire family due to a great new job offer that just couldn't be turned down, he was devastated.

He said goodbye that summer, in a whirlwind two weeks, which were spent hectically packing things into marked boxes, determining what his family wanted to put in storage and what they wished to keep with them in this new place; Lima, Ohio.

Sam figured there couldn't be anything that would keep his attention there. But he also found it as a new opportunity; a way to invent himself he supposed.

That first change came when he took a bottle of lemon juice into the bathroom one day and dyed his hair a shockingly bright blonde colour so much so that his mother fondly nicknamed him Bam-Bam, after the character in The Flintstones.

It was all playful teasing and Sam didn't really care what his mother, of all people, thought. The most important thing to him was getting to his new school and shedding his former self; the dorky, dyslexic boy who liked to read comic books and draw who also loved football but had never had the confidence to try out.

All that seemed to change when he arrived at William McKinley High School, already tipped with enough talent to lead the team as QB ahead of the already-established Finn Hudson. The girls also would look twice when they passed him in the hall, and instead of that adorable grin, he would give a smooth smile and nod subtly and walk on.

Yeah, he was making his way to the top, step by step. He grinned as one of his teammates, Mike Chang, gave a high five to Finn Hudson, who walked on the other side of him. And then he stopped.

It was then that their eyes first met.

While it would take a year for anything to ever come of this first look it held in it many questions.

He gave a polite, 'Hello.'

She wondered quietly if it was her he had been intending to stare at and when she figured it was, she gave a small smile of her and gave her own greeting, 'Hi.'

This elicited another grin from Sam and in a sense, he asked, 'What's your name?'

But she never answered him, only giving a coy smile and looking down, as if flustered by the attention.

He was ushered off the football field by Mike and Finn, who insisted they had to get to glee club, and he vaguely remembered seeing her there before he had taken his seat.

It had, again, been a brief moment of hello.

Glee club had derailed his plan for popularity quickly, he knew this. But there was something about the way Finn and Mr. Schuester described it.

_"Opening your heart to joy."_

Sure it was a bit corny but he was that kind of guy, who said the corny pick up line, who told the silly joke every once in a while.

So when Mr. Schue had said a new member of the club was needed urgently, who was he to say no? A part of him was telling him to just embrace his new status of jock, of being nearly the King of the School, but another was shaking his head and asking where he had went; Sam Evans from Tennessee would help someone in need, whether or not it conflicted with whatever reputation he was building for himself.

He felt the first repercussions for glee club they day after locking eyes with that girl on the football field.

A cold slushie hit him straight in the face. He blinked furiously but he couldn't think of anything but how cold it was. So cold.

And that is where a girl enters our story, not as a villain or antagonist or obstacle even.

Simply as the girl who wiped the slushie off of Sam's face. He looked into her eyes and once again became the corny as hell guy with stupid jokes and pick up lines. He could almost feel her second hand embarrassment.

But she seemed to be amused.

That was enough for him; to begin the courtship of Quinn Fabray.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Is she the girl he saw?"

I look up at Mercedes and she seems interested enough; always a good sign. The sun is shining through the windows and I take off my glasses and wipe them on my shirt as I mull over my answer.

"No," I decide to be truthful as I put my glasses back on.

She looks confused. "But…he's going to fall in love with her. That's the love story right?"

Again, her question is a good one. One that people asked for years after Quinn and I broke up. And by people I mean relatives.

_"She was a good girl."_

_"She was a pretty girl."_

_"She was a good, pretty, white girl."_

That was really what my grandparents, and aunts and uncles tried to say.

"It's what you'd expect," I admit but then I shake my head. "But it's not the right one."

I think of Quinn, who had sadly passed on years ago, as a bestselling, happily married authoress who went on to have three kids and who still has a legion of dedicated fans who will make sure she isn't forgotten.

 _We all seemed to be dropping like flies these days_ I think bitterly.

"There's more to this, isn't there?"

I nod.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silently, Mercedes Jones listened in on the conversation going on around her. Rachel was discussing all the duet ideas she had for herself and Finn for the competition, Brittany claimed that she had a 'secret weapon' as she shot a dirty look to Santana while Tina made clear her intention to have Mike singing or at least 'singing' by the end of the week.

It was in a somewhat sad way that she listened. Again, she had no partner. She had been relying on Kurt but he had other intentions; stating that the new guy in Glee was definitely gay and making his quest in having him as a partner known.

 _Always the best, until someone better comes along,_ she had developed as her mantra. Why not? It seemed to be true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That sounds familiar."

All I can do is continue to read, burying my sad smile into the book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then she saw him.

He was walking with Mike and Finn, those two doing some sort of handshake behind his back.

Then he looked at her.

The new guy.

Like he wanted to look at her.

Her look of confusion didn't go unnoticed as he said a silent 'hello' while she eventually returned when she processed that he was looking at her.

It was weird. She was quite comfortable in herself, she knew she had a bright future where one day she would be wanted, and heard, and counted, but when he looked at her he made her feel like the day for being wanted could be coming sooner than she thought.

When he smiled at her again, his nose scrunching in an adorable way, she shook her head.

 _He's gay, remember,_ she told herself, _don't do this again._

But she was still sad to see that he was gone when she lifted her head again and rejoined her friends' conversation.


	4. Nothing & Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer/Note : In the first chapter. Thank you for all the kind reviews and the alerts and the faves, I can never overstate how happy they make me and how they encourage me to keep going. So I hope you enjoy this latest installment.

On the arm of Quinn Fabray, the Head Cheerleader and hottest girl in school, Sam had seemed to reach all the goals he had set forth for himself before the school year began. While he had suffered his share of slushie facials for being in glee club, he was still one of the most popular guys in school, someone that girls smiled at in the hallways (but he only had eyes for one) and that the guys either silently resented or respected.

It all came with the territory he supposed, but it felt great and a fantastic way to springboard into the New Year. They had visited his relatives over the festive period, and they had badgered him with questions about his new school, his friends, and his life.

He had regaled them all with the stories; being QB of the football team, his amazing girlfriend who he had given a promise ring to (showing a picture of Quinn to his grandmother had caused her to begin crying tears of joy), winning a glee club competition the first week he was in the group (his cousins had given him some light ribbing about that one but he had laughed it off, insisting that glee could actually be kind of cool) and their win at the Sectionals competition which he had led with Quinn and Santana.

They had been impressed, exclaiming their delight and it had put Sam onto an all time high for the New Year.

Until all those plans were crushed to dust.

At first it was the small things he noticed. Quinn seemed more and more distant, making plans and then cancelling with only one or two hours' notice. So he had backed off, deciding to give her some space, calmly telling himself that she was probably just tired or stressed because of schoolwork. If it had been something he had done she would have told him, right?

If it had been something about them she would bring it up, right?

Before long his worries about Quinn were pushed to a secondary slot in his mind, when he began to notice his parents also behaving out of character. His father would leave early in the morning and not return until late at night while there had been one or two times he would be called up, leaving school, his mother hastily asking him to pick up his siblings from school because she had things to do.

Actually, if he was being honest, he hadn't thought much of it until the hushed conversations behind closed doors began. It was one night when he was thirsty and he shuffled out of his bed at two thirty in the morning for a drink from the kitchen. Quietly he descended the stairs but found that the living room light was still on. Curious, he poked his head around the door, to see his father hunched over the coffee table, letters piled all around him as he desperately wrote something on a sheet of paper, his mother reading something silently.

Then the louder arguments began. He hadn't been around for many of them, deciding instead to get Stacey and Stevie out of the house when they began. He picked up certain words when he ducked out of the house though. 'Homeless', 'recession', 'unemployed' flew around like bullets to his ears.

On some occasions he had tried to confide in Quinn but he had always bit his tongue. There was the fear that she would think differently of him if he was found out; if anyone found out. So he found shouldering the problem was better. Keeping it all bottled up was a more desirable option than asking for help. Asking for help was a sign of weakness, a sign of the dorky guy who used to sit in the corner reading his comic books. It wasn't a reflection of the man he was now, the man he had grown into over the summer.

If Sam Evans had known then, that he was nothing more than a boy in man's clothing at this point, he would have been shocked. To find that he had more to learn, to discover and take from life would be an inconceivable bombshell to the young man.

But that is the key to all great stories is it not?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While she held nothing against Blaine, her best friend Kurt's new best gay friend from his new school, Dalton Academy, Mercedes was sure that if she was told he would be 'tagging along' to one more bowling night, or movie night or any other sort of outing, she would implode.

With Tina blissfully in love with Mike, Brittany and Artie stuck together like glue, Santana being…well, Santana (Mercedes wasn't quite sure what that girl was doing these days) and Rachel off in drama-land with the newest Finn Hudson crisis, Mercedes had found that the number of her friends without some sort of significant other was dwindling.

Sure, she wanted nothing more than Kurt to be happy, to find love that he deserved, but she would often miss the nights when they would flick through magazines drooling over the hot guys they could never have while mockingly bemoaning their lack of a love life. They would joke that they didn't care and even while they knew that they both did, it didn't worry them as much, because at least they had each other to lean on.

Now she was sure she was losing that as well.

His attempt to set her up with Anthony Rashad had been done with only the best of intentions in mind but in the end disastrous. The two had had nothing in common and even though Anthony had suggested they 'do this again sometime' (An hour of uncomfortably staring at their coffee cups while trying to make small talk) she was sure they never would again.

And she was fine with that. She wasn't a girl who would stumble her way through something fake and half-hearted just so she could say she had _something_ , at least not anymore, not since the mess with Kurt the previous prided herself on that, as a matter of fact, and saw it as a sign of growth within herself. She was waiting for something real; and she would carry the heartache of waiting for as long as she had to. She clung to the phrase, 'good things come to those who wait' like a mantra and deeply held belief.

Anyway, as she had made clear to Kurt on the numerous occasions he had asked her opinion on his potential boyfriend, she liked Blaine. He was funny, likable and tried to make sure she felt included, even if she felt like the awkward as hell third wheel in most of their conversations.

But she had begun to feel Kurt pulling away and this was only emphasised when he moved to Dalton, for understandable reasons, his bullying at the hands of a jock reaching alarming heights.

With Kurt at another school the New Year heralded nothing but loneliness for Mercedes so she began to throw everything she had into other activities, outside and inside of school. She tutored, practiced for her choir at the local church every day, handed in all assignments on time.

Her academic prospects had never been higher, which delighted her parents and brothers to no end, but left a void in her chest. She was missing out on her teenage years and because of what? Because of people who couldn't give her the time of day anymore.

A love story wouldn't be a love story without a great voyage of self-discovery, would it? And as Sam Evans would find out what it really was to be a man, Mercedes Jones would find herself too. She would embrace who she was, not shy away from it; demand the spotlight she deserved and had so quietly craved for years, in the shadow of those deemed more talented, more conventionally beautiful, and so on and so forth.

But in between it all, the confusion and different directions life would pull you in where did you find this? It would come to be it would be in different ways, avenues which would pull and pick at their insecurities and make them battle with the hard questions and decisions. But all roads lead back to love, and that it is the story here in the end.

However before we can reach the end we must find the real beginning of the story.

Where exactly did the love story of Sam Evans and Mercedes Jones begin?

It was not the day on the football field when their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, no, that was much too early and it was not the night he asked her to dance at the junior prom because that was much too late, for it had already begun before he had reached out his hand and she had hesitantly placed hers in his.

It was the moments that happened in between those two.

When Sam Evans lost it all, and felt he had nothing to give, and Mercedes Jones was looking for someone, someone she could show, with her kind heart, that nothing could be everything.

And that is where our story really begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we either have one or no short chapters left. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to structure the next one. Just depends on what happens when I write it up and where my muse takes me. Anyway, I enjoyed writing this one and I will be ducking into older Sam and Mercedes reading the story every couple of chapters but probably not every chapter, just to kind of keep the rhythm of The Notebook up.
> 
> Thank you for your continued support and until next time,
> 
> WickedSong x


	5. One More Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer/Note : In the first chapter. Sorry this one has taken a little time. I sort of lost my Glee muse for a while there since I'm no longer watching the show and Samcedes are the only thing I actually blog about from it anymore so...But it's back and it's manifested itself in this chapter! Hope you all enjoy and please give me some feedback, I love reading all the lovely reviews that you guys leave me!

"This sounds like a good story," she says with a smile. "I'm glad you're reading it to me…" She tries to remember the name.

"Duke," I say almost immediately. In all honesty, Duke has become sort of a crutch to lean on, a name and a character that is easy to slip into.

Every day I sit here with her I am Duke, a kindly but frail old man who just wishes to spread a small piece of joy through this story. I am not Sam Evans, who is desperately trying to make my wife remember me. I like to think that if I pretend I am Duke, and not Sam, it doesn't hurt nearly as much. Of course, that is a lie, but it is the little lies that we tell ourselves that make the greatest impression.

They are the ones that make us feel so much better about our shortcomings, our wrongs, that to part with them would be a lie in itself. I am old, I am weak, I entitle myself to them with hardly any guilt at all.

Being 'Duke' had been hard when I had first adopted the persona a few years ago, but it was the only way. If I was Sam, sometimes the memories would come back to her in such a way that it scared her. She would become sure, paranoid that it was all some sort of trick. I couldn't bear to see her in that much pain.

"You don't look like a Duke," she comments, as she sits forward in her seat. The way the light hits her, as it pours through the glass windows, makes her striking, so much so that I pretend to adjust my glasses and lean back in my own seat, taking the book and gesturing as if 'should I go on?'

"Yes," she answers. "I like this story."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You have to cancel _again?_ " asked Mercedes, as she held the phone to her ear. She sighed. "I understand, Kurt but-"He and Blaine were going on another date. Mercedes counted it as the fourth or fifth one since they had started dating officially two weeks ago. "It was nothing-Have fun with that boy of yours." She nodded. "Love you too, Kurt, goodbye."

She threw the phone down on her bed and fell back on it, giving a hugely audible sigh as she did so. She lay for about ten minutes before she went over to her calendar and crossed out the note under the date. _Movies + Mall with Kurt._

They hadn't been on a movies and mall day since he had transferred to Dalton. She corrected herself, they had been on one but it had ended in him meeting Blaine and his friends and from there it had turned into another 'Mercedes as the third wheel' event that she had grown so sick and tired of being a part of.

Turning back to her room, she looked for something to do. It was Saturday and now with Kurt bailing on her – again, she didn't hesitate to add resentfully – she had to think of something else to do with her time.

She looked to the homework sitting on her desk and groaned inwardly at the idea of another Saturday spent doing long division and an English essay. She shook her head and grabbed her keys, sure she could find something to do by herself. Everyone else was already busy so she would have to entertain herself she guessed.

She drove and drove until she arrived at the park. It was sunny and she figured there were worse ways she could spend her time, so she took a book from the backseat of her car, opened the door and climbed out, locking the car door behind her.

She strolled around the park first and then found a bench. Sitting down she cracked open the book and began perusing it. It was one of her favourites but she hadn't read it in a while. This was much better than-

"Incoming!"

"Stevie, be careful!"

Mercedes moved her head just in time as a football came flying towards her. A flash of blonde hair ran right past her bench and she looked straight ahead, finding Sam Evans walking towards her.

He wore a sheepish grin when he stood in front of her. "I'm sorry about that, Mercedes," he said. " _Someone_ should be more careful where they throw things!"

She laughed and could feel a genuine smile on her lips. "One time my brother accidentally hit me right in the face with a football." She shrugged. "I could have handled it, I'm sure."

Sam held his arms up. "Well, you seem like an expert there, don't you?" When his brother rushed towards him, he took the boy by the shoulders and turned him round to face Mercedes. "What do you say?"

"Sorry?" ventured the boy, who looked to be quite similar to his older brother, except obviously eight or nine years younger.

"It's fine. I'm alright."

"That's right."

"You know each other?" the smaller boy asked and Sam nodded.

"Mercedes here, is in glee club with me." He bent down to his brother's level and in a mock whisper confided, "If you ask me, Stevie, I think she's the best in the club." He added, as if it was an afterthought, and again in a mock whisper. "But don't tell her I told you that."

Sam's brother, Stevie, laughed and then ran back to the swing set right directly across from the bench where a little blonde girl, Sam's sister she assumed swung talking to another girl sitting beside her.

Sam looked to Mercedes. "Are we really okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah." He sat down on the bench next to her and she looked at him, confused. "I thought you were babysitting?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes I need a rest. Plus, as long as I can see them, I don't think sitting down on the job is a crime."

She took a moment, pretending to contemplate it. "No, I'm pretty sure it's in the constitution."

"Really?"

"No."

"I knew that." Sam leaned back in his seat. "I totally did know that you were lying. I'm not stupid or anything."

She shook her head. "I never thought you were."

Sure, she had thought he could be silly at times, and sometimes the clueless newbie at McKinley act got old but overall he hadn't really given her any indication that he was 'stupid'.

"So who's that your sister's talking to?" she wondered aloud.

"One of her friends from school," Sam replied. "Wait, how'd you know that was my sister?"

"Superpowers?"

"Try lucky guess."

"Damn, you got me!"

They both laughed at the same time at this one. They silently watched his brother and sister before she had the courage to turn around to him and say what had been playing on her mind that past week.

"I'm sorry by the way," she began and at his confused expression she continued, also noting that he had looked strangely scared – although she could've just imagined the split second of terror that had lit up in his eyes, "about what happened between you and Santana, I mean," she clarified and he nodded, looking relieved and also downcast.

"Well, these things happen I guess," he muttered, keeping his eyes on the ground.

"Yeah but the way she did it," Mercedes said. "And so soon after Quinn and Finn…"

She wished, at that moment, that she hadn't brought it up at all.

"No, it's fine, I don't want your pity," he snapped.

"I'm-"

"If one more person tells me they're sorry , I'm going to scream, I swear," he said quietly.

Silence, this time of a more awkward variety, washed over them anew and he stood. "I have to go," he told her. "This was…nice." His tone was bitter while Mercedes sat uncomfortably, wishing she could take the words back. "See you in glee."

She watched him walk away, feeling terrible all the way home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had regretted snapping at her the moment he had done so but the damage was done and he had walked away. It was just the pressure of the situation beginning to drown him again and it was a current he was in dangerous peril of being swept away by.

Before he left the park with Stevie and Stacey that day he had looked back only to find that Mercedes had already left.

And so they didn't speak again until a week afterwards.

By that time the entire club knew about his family's situation as he had been forced to reveal all during a tense practice where Rachel, a talented but loud member of the club, the self-confessed 'star' if you will, allegedly, according to Quinn and anyone with eyes, was singing to Quinn's boyfriend, Finn. At first Sam had believed the speculation about his home life had died down but as it turned out this argument unfolding was about to make it worse.

_"They're just helping me out."_

_"Is that what we're calling it now?"_

Her words seemed to sting the most, made him feel almost shameful and dirty and he had had no idea why exactly.

When he had finally confessed it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders but also like he was drowning again.

These days he always felt like he was drowning.

Rachel and Finn had returned his guitar earlier on that day, the one which his grandfather had given him and he had sold just to put food on the table, and just as he was trying to settle his siblings down once more, there was another knock on the door.

Initially he entertained the idea of pretending they were out but that notion was squashed when Stevie loudly complained that Stacey had changed the channel on the tv. Sam had switched the old set off and told them, in a lowered voice, to get to sleep.

He opened the door, poking his head around to find Mercedes standing there. When he saw her he almost closed the door but she held her foot out.

"Just hear me out."

"I don't need one more person to tell me they're-"

"Sorry," she finished. She looked guilty. "I know."

He sighed and stepped outside, standing in front of the now-closed door. "What do you want?"

"Well, to apologise, for what I said today. I…I was out of line."

He held his hand up. "You know what? It's forgotten, honest." He shrugged. "I've figured there's no point holding grudges. You never know what might happen, life's too short."

"But still-"

"Just…it's fine, really," he replied, shaking his head. "I know that you didn't mean it."

"So we're okay?" Mercedes wasn't sure why she had to know; maybe she still remembered that first day she saw his face. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she wasn't becoming some sort of judgmental hypocrite. Whatever it was she still needed some sort of sign that her apology had landed.

She would wait all night if she had to.

He nodded and upon seeing that it was genuine Mercedes smiled at him and gave a thumbs up. "Great! Well, I'd better get going. Say hi to your brother and sister for me?"

Sam only nodded again as she turned from the porch.

She stood at her car door and turned to find he was still standing at the porch.

They smiled at one another and she surely knew then; there was still something, something inside her that remembered that day on the football field clearly, when their eyes met for the first time and she felt still, calm but excited all at the same time.

And little did she know; and maybe he didn't know at the time either, it's hard to pinpoint these things, he felt the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we have our early beginnings laid and since we've ended at Rumours here, you can only guess what is coming next...THE FIRST PROM! *a yay is heard from around the world within the Samcedes fandom...at least I hope*
> 
> Please review and thank you as always for the continued support!
> 
> WickedSong x


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